Mr. Bernard Krisher at the CSAJ Year-End Party

When you try to search "Bernard Krisher" in any internet search engines, you will find Mr. Bernard's name links to "Cambodia Schools". Mr. Bernard was know as "a mobile office", "a pusher, a hyperactive bundle of energy and ideas, a class act, a seven-day-a-week man"...etc. He is the founder of the independent newspaper "Cambodia Daily" and other two nonprofit organizations, "American Association for Cambodia" and "Japan Relief for Cambodia" which operate programs to improve opportunities for Cambodian youth and rural poor. Furthermore, he launched the Sihanouk Hospital-Center for the American charity HOPE, took up the requirements of the Future Light Orphanage, built and operated Cambodia's largest free media library, supported 285 children through foster parent sponsorships and English computer training, and Anti-trafficking. By the end of 2007, the number of schools he built has reached 397.

(http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodiaschools/schools_map/schools_map.htm). Let's imagine, Cambodia totally has 1621 sangkats/villages, so it can be said that Mr. Bernard has contributed at least one school in four villages. I greatly appreciate all his contributions to my home country.

Today, Cambodian Students Association in Japan holds a Year-End Party as we had usually done in the previous years after electing a new president. Taking this opportunity two weeks ago I personally wrote an e-mail to invite Mr. Bernard for his honor participation, and I was very delighted to have his presence at the reception.

Here is his impression mail to my husband, Sreng, after attending the party:

"Thank you very much for your nice e-mail and great pictures of a memorable evening. Your party was excellent. The students I met were so friendly and I was very impressed with their personalities. This gives me great confidence about the future generation running the country in the future much more than the current "movers and pushers." I hope your generation truly become the best and brightest. The two performances I saw last night were superb. I like the two traditional dancers. The dancers have lost nothing of the talent that has made Cambodia such a remarkable culture starting with Angkor Wat. Your import of two sexy belly dancers from Japan was very innovative and entertaining. I am sure this has been a great contribution to cementing the close relationship between Cambodia and Japan. "

We can find more about Mr. Bernard's charity activities in the following URLs:

http://www.cambodiaschools.com/
http://www.girlsbeambitious.org/
http://www.brightfuturekids.org/
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/

Niwa Community Center

Today, I was invited by my senior in PhD course at the University of Tokyo (above picture: white shirt) to have a Cultural Exchange Talk with a group of about 20 attendances at Niwa Community Center, Chiba Prefecture. The meeting was organized by my senior's mom, who is really interested in everything about Cambodia especially the Khmer culture and food. One and half hour had passed through lots of interesting questions from the attendances. It is great to see Cambodia's culture fascinates more and more Japanese recently. Surely, I welcome and ready to share with them at my utmost.


I introduced them some of the basic information about Cambodia, and showed them some photos of Cambodian foods. One of the photos is Cambodian Chicken curry that I made which Cambodian people usually eat it thin-rice noodle that we call in Khmer language "Num Banhchok". It is similar to Japanese "Somen". Then, it reminds me to talk about the story of "Num Banhchok" and Japanese "Udong". According to a made-up story, Japanese "Udong" may probably come from Cambodia. Udong is the name of old Cambodia's capital city located at the northen part of the current capital city, Phnom Penh, that "Num Banhchok" originated from. Once upon a time, Japanese people went to Udong and saw people there eating "Num Banhchok", so they asked what is the name of that food? The local people there misinterpret the question to "What is the name of the place?" So, they answered "Udong". Then, the Japanese people thought Num Banhchok's name is Udong. Thus, they name Japanese Udong as Udong.

The same story is happened to Pumpkin, potato and sweet potato (Satsumaimo). Pumpkin was brought into Japan by portuguese sailors in 1541. the portuguese name the pumkin as "kabocha abobora", then the term was shortened by the Japanese to "Kabocha". Even now in Japanese language "Cambodia" is "Kambocha. About the Potato that in Japanese language calls "Jagaimo" was imported to Japan via Jakarta in the 17th century. The term is from "Jaka"(rta) + "imo". Imo means roots of vegetable. Similar to "Satsumaimo" which came from "Satsuma" + "Imo". "Satsuma" is the name of a small country in the seventh century, it was located in the west of current Kagoshima Prefecture. Kyushu Island is one of the country in Japan in the ancient era. It is interesting, isn't it?

I think not many japanese people know this tale and when they heard about that they seemed to be very surprised. One lady in the class brought Cambodia Map written in Japanese, and she found the place named Udong. After that, everybody just laughed and talked to me: "so, the right way to eat Udong is to eat it with Curry. Isn't it?" and all just kept laughing and laughing......

Daitakuritsu Oomori Daisan J.H

The following photos were taken at Daitakuritsu Oomori Daisan Junior High School. I taught Japanese students about Cambodian manner, "Sam peah". It is to join your both hands together and bow your head to show respectful to elderly people, monk or to greet somebody in a formal way.

Celebration of Cambodia Independent Day

Yesterday, I went to attend a party reception at the Royal Embassy of Cambodia to Japan to celebrate the 54th Annaversary of Cambodia Independent Day. Cambodia fully gained Indepedence from France on the 9th of November 1953 after being administered as part of the French colony of Indochina from 1863 to 1953.

I was honored by having a photo with H.E. Ambassador Pou Sothearak, and Mr. Yasushi Akashi, former Special Representative of the Secretary General of the U.N for Cambodia.

Hachioji Shiritsu Daiichi Junior High School

Today, I am invited to teach at Hachioji Shiritsu Daiichi Junior High School. My students are in their first year of group 3. They are very good students as they tried to listen to my presentation and came up with lots of interesting questions to me.

I would like to share you what surprises me today? Well, the nearest station to the school is Kitahachioji which is located in the western part about 30km far from the city center, Tokyo. The train lines are not as busy as those in the city center, so I had to wait for 15 minutes to transfer from Hachioji to Kitahachioji. While lots of passengers were in the train, I stood outside to wait for the train's doors open in order to get on, but the doors were still keeping close until I saw someone else opened it with his hands, then I realize it's manual door. Probably it was set in order to save electricity by preventing the heat leaks out. Actually I used to have the same experience in Melbourne's suburb trains, but it expenriences me the first time in Japan.

Coming back from Vacation

It was a long stay in Cambodia and I had a wonderful vacation there. I missed this blog very much since I haven't updated for long. I didn't have much time to check internet as often as I do it here. How was my vacation? Well, I didn't go out so often this time besides visiting Siem Reap "Angkorwat", and instead I stayed at home with my lovely daughter and playing with my nieces and nephews. It was great time though. Anyway, as I am getting used to a busy life in Japan, sometimes it makes me feel so boring in Cambodia with too much time of relax. I do miss life in Japan. Now, I am back here:) However, I feel like missing my daughter again in Cambodia.

Cambodian Home Cooking Foods

These are Cambodian home cooking foods.

The name of the foods are from the left Khmer style salad (Nhoim), Chha Tro Koun, Chha Sandek baraing and Khor, and Chha Khjei respectively.

Summer Vacation is coming!

Summer courses passed by pretty quickly. Today is the last day of my semester exams. I feel very relaxed after completing all the tests. From now on, I will have a two-month summer vacation, so that I will spend it in Cambodia together with my families. It could be said that this is the longest holiday for me to stay in Phnom Penh since I came to study in Japan. Right now, I don't want to think about anything elses besides looking forward to heading for Cambodia and seeing my daughter there!!! She must have grown bigger now......

Pictures at Itabashi Daiichi Junior High School

These are the photos I just received from the teacher at Itabashi Daiichi Junior High School who promised to send to me the other day.

Party with Cambodian Friends

I was just back from the party at Brother Sam Ang's house in Tokyo. It was my first time to go there to have a party with other Cambodian students and enjoyed with various kinds of delicious foods. Though some of them I just met for the first time, they are really good company. We made fun by teasing each other, and brother Theavin was the one who made the party really come alive with his thousand of jokes. Everybody just couldn't stop laughing and stayed awake the whole night.

Itabashi Daiichi Junior High School

This morning, I went to Itabashi Daiichi Junior High school to teach second year students there, the lecture is called "Cultural Exchange Program". This time was quite different from the previous ones because of huge number of students and teachers (120 students and their 6 teachers) were combined into one class at the gymnasium to listen to my presentation. In response to the request of the school, I've talked about Cambodian culture, people's life styles and manner, and the world heritage "Angkor Wat", the condition of Cambodia's current economic development and the process of landmine removal. It was a long lecture I had provided, and those students and teachers seemed to be very enthusiastic about what I had presented. During the lecture, the school teacher also took photos and video, and promised to send some to me later. I was a bit tired after finishing the presentation and answering the questions from the floor. When I managed to return home, the school principal warmfully invited me to have lunch together with their students. It was very nice to be able to have a meal with them.

Niigata Earthquake

This morning there was earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 rocked a wide area of Niigata Prefecture. I feel very sorry to hear about that and feel pitty for people living in Niigata since the same prefecture was hitted by a severe quake once in October 23th, 2004. The earthquake had caused electronic power failure, water and gas pipes have ruptured in many areas of the prefecture. So far, there have been 6 people killed and over 700 injured.　There are many people leaving home to the evacuation areas. I want to know how Cambodian students living in Niigata are, so I called to one of my friend there. At first, she didn't picked up the phone and I was so worried about her. After many tries, Luckily, I finally can get through, and I am very glad to hear that her family and she are doing fine. As for others, I got a mail from Cambodian Student Association that none of Cambodian students there was suffered by the disaster. I wish those evacuees could return their home a.s.a.p.

My photos at Tachikawa High School

These are the photos taken during my lecture to the students at Tachikawa High School two weeks ago that I just received from Kokusai Eizo Kyouiku Kyokai.

Television Interview

CTN staffs went to interview me at The University of Tokyo, and took video of the campus landscape as well as some of my activities as a student life there.

This is my first time to be interviewed for television. I was once invited to the studio for the interview on "ABC Radio Australia" in Melbourne in March 2006.

My Activities with the Cambodia Television Network (CTN)

These photos were taken at Akasaka Excel Hotel Tokyo during the interview with Prof. Kohama Yuhisashi, professor of Shizuoka University, and Mr. TE Soksreng, a third year PhD student of Yokohama National University about the Prospect of Cambodia's Economy.


Photos with H.E Pou Sithirak, Ambassador of Cambodia to Japan and CTN staffs

Photo with Ms. Penn Setharin, owner of Cambodian Restaurant "Angkor Thom" at Machida.

Having dinners together after completing the duties.

My activity today at Tagara Junior High School (練馬区立田柄中学校)

2007/06/26

This is another chance for me to teach Japanese students about Cambodia culture. When I asked what they know about Cambodia, some of them answered me with two words "Angkorwat" and "Landmine". Probably they know about Angkorwat because Angkor Wat is one the most famous world heritages, and they know about landmine because they used to watch the Japanese drama titled "Chirai wo fundara sayônara" (English title: One step on a mine, It's all over) acted by Japnese famous star, Mr. Tadanobu Asano.

Most of the students still think that Cambodia is still a country filling with mines everywhere, that's why I would like to take this opportunity to clearly explain them to understand about the actual situation. After listening to my explanation with good examples and reasons, they seem to change their image toward Cambodia and express their willings to visit Cambodia once in their lives.

Welcome Message

Dear visitors,

Welcome to my blog!!!

I am Lina, a Cambodian students who is currently studying at the University of Tokyo. Studying in Japan has been one of my dreams since I was in high school. In 2000, I won Outstanding Winner in a Mathematics contest amongs students from all high schools in Phnom Penh. After completing the high school, I passed the entrance examination to enter into National Institute of Management in the field of business, and the Royal University of Phnom Penh in the field of Information Technology. In 2001, I applied and successfully won the Japanese Government Scholarship (Monbusho) to study in Japan which started since April 2002.

I am creating this blog to share with you anything I like including photos, musics, films, books, news, information about Cambodia as well as some of my activities. Please feel free to leave me comment, either in English or Japanese.